...I did not struggle with weight growing up, but after getting married and having five kids, I had moved solidly into the "overweight" population. In 2006 I was able to lose the extra pounds (50 of them) and get to goal. But staying there, that is another story. Slow but steady, the weight has crept back on over the years. So here we go again ...

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

My Kindle Unlimited Experience

I've been a Kindle girl for a few years now. Hubs had purchased a Kindle Fire to try, but it wasn't until I added the Kindle app to my iphone that I really discovered digital ... and became a convert. While I've always loved to read, I had a hard time having books on hand when I found a spare moment. Not a problem any more! I have hundreds of books just waiting for me in my Kindle Cloud (granted, many of these have been free or very inexpensive offerings I've heard about from Pixal of Ink or BookBub ... and often you get what you pay for. But then again, I've been very happy with a ton of these free offerings). I also have a list a mile long of titles available from my library, and I use GoodReads to find even more recommendations (and keep track of what I have read). Since converting to Kindle, my reading repertoire has expanded almost infinitely!

So, while I adore Amazon and I covet my Kindle ... when I heard about Kindle Unlimited, I scoffed a bit. $10 a month? I admit it, I'm cheap, and I have a hard time justifying buying books, especially when I have so many free ones at my fingertips. We have AmazonPrime, and with that, I could borrow a book from Kindle's Lending Library (which I assumed was the same content as Kindle Unlimited ... this is actually incorrect I discovered) so I had access to some of those books anyway (and I have been dutifully borrowing my book a month, even though I dislike reading it on my Kindle device instead of my phone). For the most part, Kindle Unlimited does NOT have the new, latest and greatest stuff (while it advertises best sellers like Hunger Games and Harry Potter as part of the plan, those are older, and I've already read them, hasn't everyone?) so it never even tempted me at all.

Then I read AngelFall ... I'd picked up this for free back in 2013 and finally got around to reading it. I enjoyed it and looked up the sequels (and this is WHY many authors/Amazon offer free books, to hopefully get you hooked and make you pay to finish the series *Ü*) The sequels were $4-5 each (at the time, prices change and they are just $2 as I post this), and I noticed they were part of KindleUnlimited. I figured if I read both of them, and another book or two, it would be worth a $10 payment (if I just did it for a month). But even better, Amazon offers a 30-day free trial, so, I signed up. And started reading ... I wanted to get my monies worth (even if it was free *Ü*).

21 books later, I was pretty darn pleased with my 30-day KindleUnlimited free trial. I was happy with the quality of the content and loved being able to access the books from my Iphone (not just my Kindle device). One very pleasant surprise was the audio options. I've just recently adapted to audio and many of the books included in Unlimited had free narration as well. I LOVE this read-along feature Amazon offers (being able to see the book in print and have the narration as well). I started wearing my headphones everywhere, to get the most "reading" in during my trial.

As my month came to a close, while I did enjoy Kindle Unlimited, it just isn't worth a month-to-month $10 fee for me. As mentioned above, I have oodles of books ready to read. I have created a list, tracking books on KindleUnlimited that I would be interested in (sequels to those I picked up for free, those with audio options, or just ones with good reviews that have caught me eye) and maybe I'll actually pay for another month here and there ... we'll see.

That said ... I do always worry about the hassle of canceling a free trial. This was a snap. I just accessed my Amazon account online, went to the "Digital Content" section, and followed the "Manage Your Digital Subscriptions" link. I watched my date, and ended my free trial the day before I would have been charged. Amazon still allowed me access to the content through the next day ... although it did end at 12:00 Eastern Time (I'd planned on a little bit more reading before bed but POOF, my borrowed books were gone!)

Addressing the "Unlimited" portion of the plan ... you ARE limited to ten books at a time. Why do they call it unlimited if there are limits? But seriously, 10 books at a time is fine. You will need to manually return (using the "Manage Your Digital Devices" link) books to allow you to download more.

I'm back to borrowing from my library, and reading the books I already have in my Kindle Cloud. Plenty of content there to keep me busy for a while! But thanks Amazon for the free trial! I just wasn't quite able to finish up the final book (book3) in the Clone Chronicles ... I figured I'd just borrow it as my May Kindle Prime book. But that is how I found out that because a book is part of Kindle Unlimited, it is NOT necessarily part of Amazon's Lending Library. Lucky for me, I had downloaded the book to an extra Ipod I had ... one with the wifi turned off ... so I actually still have it on my device for the moment (as long as I don't bring it back online until I'm done!)

Have you heard of Kindle Unlimited? Your thoughts on the program?
My GoodReads Profile.

I'm JenB ... this is my journey.

About My Blog ...

As I started this journey (again) I wanted a place to keep a daily diary, to showcase some of the graphs and photos that visually capture the process and to have a place to record my thoughts. This blog is mainly for me... although as long as I'm writing this all down, I might as well put it out there for others to see too.

In addition to my weekly weigh-in, I'll try to post fitness and food features. Because books (reading while riding, or audiobooks while walking) and TV (my entertainment while I elliptical) are part of my journey, I have monthly posts about what I'm watching/reading as well.

Got Graphs?

What can I say ... I'm a visual person. I created this blog in part, to help me keep track of many of my graphs which often only seemed to be available for a limited time. I want to keep them!

Motivational Memberships

Click on the image above to go to my My Fitness Pal page

Click on the picture above to go to my Fitbit page *Ü*

Click on the image above to go to my Walker Tracker page

Pinterest

Hubby & Me ... Nov2006 at my goal weight. I like that my arm actually looks slender. I remember hubby complimenting me on my triceps. I want to get there again!

Summer 2009 ... my 20 year high school reunion. Not at my lowest weight, but still feeling good about myself. Hubby looks pretty cute too! We went to the same high school, so we'd been to his reunion the year before.

I really liked the first two books of this series. I'm not a huge fan of novellas, but I read Roar and Liv and liked it. I noticed my library had this and the 3rd book available (for instant download even!) I decided to give this a quick...

This is being billed as a "Peter Pan" retelling. And it is. It was interesting to hear the familiar names woven in. I did wonder that John and Michael were twins. There was no real reason they couldn't have been a couple years apart, mor...

Three and a half stars ... I bought this on an Amazon sale, three books for $3. I didn't realize that it was really only ONE book and two novellas. I had wondered which to read first (Betwixt or Before) ... I read Betwixt as it was the f...

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I did read this right after Timepiece ... not really because I was excited to continue on, but because I had requested it from Netgalley. Having been approved, I then felt obligated to read and review. The three books all had a similar f...

Book one (Hourglass) was one of the first books I read as I got back into reading (after discovering digital and seeing how easy it was to download directly from the library or Amazon). I'd liked Hourglass ok ... it had been a while sinc...

I'd had this on my "list" and it was available at my library, but then it came across the Kindle boards for free, so I snapped it up. I had been a bit concerned when I saw it was labeled as "Christian Fiction" as that can rub me the wron...

... I was always a bit confused as to whether this was titled "Maximum Ride" or "The Angel Experiment" ...
I enjoy YA reads, but this actually felt aimed at an even slightly younger audience (12-13?). It was a decent story. I'm not sur...